Markus Braumann
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. Understanding additive manufacturing’s (AM) role in a ‘VUCA’ world set the tone as the seventh AM Forum Berlin conference commenced on Tuesday.
COVID-induced disruptions to supply chain are still hampering many manufacturers, and the threat of climate change looms large – not to mention geopolitical conflicts. Meanwhile, the adoption of additive manufacturing is running into the same hurdles. A technology that has so much promise is at a critical juncture on its route to ‘redefining manufacturing’ – a phrase shared by one of today’s presenters.
At the time of writing, we are at our first interlude – a 25-minute refreshment break after three back-to-back sessions danced around the same few subjects. In five minutes, HP’s Global Head of 3D Polymers Francois Minec will draw delegates back to the conference main stage to talk efficiency, sustainability, automation, and production, before more users detail their experiences incorporating and then applying additive manufacturing technology.
As they do, some recurring themes emerge: strategic collaboration, customer and hierarchy buy-in, culture and mindset, and first, the crazy world we live in.
VUCA
BASF, Forward AM Managing Director Martin Back said in the opening panel session, works with practically every machine manufacturer in the world, owed to it being one of the largest materials providers. He noted that there are stresses of the VUCA world, and then there are stresses involved in adopting a technology like AM. There are those who have a clear and strategic vision for facilitating the roll-out of additive, but there is also hesitation in the market.
Back identified three hurdles. One is that additive technology is not at a readiness level that can yet rival traditional techniques. Another is that an ecosystem with less collaboration than conventional manufacturing industries is making it harder for users to get away from those processes. And the third is that companies are trying to overcome both these hurdles at the same time.
Two poll questions were put to the delegates within the first 30 minutes of today’s programme. The second asked what potential solutions AM can provide in a VUCA world, with sustainability, time to market, spare parts, and supply chain resilience among the top answers. And the first queried where on the Gartner hype cycle attendees considered AM to be. The top answer (coming in at 45-50%), was ‘climbing the slope’ – this the penultimate stage that proceeds the ‘plateau of productivity.’
Which would suggest the technology and those who use it are in a good place to tackle the oncoming challenges. But are they?
Collaboration
Session #3, How additive manufacturing is helping CNH steer a stronger supply chain strategy' began with an anecdote from Peter Ommelsag, Director – Industry 4.0 Global Program Lead at CNH Industrial. Leading the presentation alongside Materialise’s Hanne Gielis, Ommeslag – a keen gardener – detailed his use of AM at home having smashed one of his wife’s vases. To redeem himself, he got to work designing and printing a vase, before presenting it to his wife. ‘It’s special,’ she assessed, ‘but I’ve been looking at it for five minutes and I’m yet to figure out where to put the flowers.’
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His point, he would reveal at the end of the presentation, was evident in Gielis’ place on the stage. Without expert collaborators, CNH couldn’t do what it is doing. And what it is doing is harnessing AM as part of a structured supply chain strategy, which has included the development of twins for every part in the company’s database so if required, CNH has an additively manufactured part to fill any gaps.
Having adopted the technology in 2008 for prototyping, the company expanded its implementation to tools, jigs, and fixtures in 2015 (50% of the company’s plants now use the technology for these applications) and spare parts in 2018. It could not have done it, he said, without the support of Materialise.
Collaboration has been another of the event’s buzzwords this morning. The solution to the three hurdles outlined by Back is a ‘collaboration ecosystem.’ He said: “This can only be overcome by close collaboration together with an industrial partner. It cannot be a bilateral buyer-seller process anymore.” He, along with Dominik Klampfl, Gear Industrial Designer, Canyon Bicycles, and Brian Crotty, Business Devlopment Manager, rpm rapid product manufacturing GmbH, will conclude today's proceedings by highlighting a computer mount for a Canyon bicycle, which the three companies collaborated on.
Dr. Kai Kuhlmann, Director Technical Functions, Powertrain Solutions, Robert Bosch GmbH, had also earlier noted that as the company scales its serial production applications, it will explore the installation of SLM Solution’s NXG XII 600 12-laser platforms – but importantly: ‘Machines off the shelf won’t meet our expectations, so we need deep partnerships.’
Tech buys and buy-ins
It is here where Kuhlmann asserts one of the difficulties of adopting new technologies like AM for a manufacturer. Bosch has a dedicated 3D printing facility in Nuremburg, within 15 associates operating plastic and metal machinery to complete 300 projects and deliver 2,000 parts a year.
“We need projects to invest in new machines, but we need new machines to start projects and developments,” he noted. He describes the balance between capacity and resources as a ‘chicken and egg problem’ or a ‘Mexican stand-off’. He opines that the solution is to consider AM not as an alternative but as an advantage: Consider the design changes that might improve the performance or control the cost, for example.
Ommeslag at CNH can relate. His is one of the many companies turning to AM in a bid to make its manufacturing processes more sustainable, while also looking to reduce the impact of supply chain disruptions on its customers. “Our first question is not ‘can it be printed or [about] quality?’ We ask [about] total cost of ownership, demand vs minimum order quantity, design complexity, the tooling cost of a traditionally made part?”
He was not alone in making the point that there is more to the cost of a part than the manufacturing step, and more to consider than just how much a part costs anyway. Businesses are businesses, sure, but there was a feeling in this morning’s sessions that these considerations are amounting to a continued resistance to apply AM where possible.
The printing of jigs and fixtures was routinely cited by users as a significant step forward in their application of AM, but Back suggested that there are many users who, though they are using the technology for some tooling components, are still missing opportunities.
“95% of printable jigs and fixtures are still not printed,” he estimated. “They say they do it, they have three printers in the corner, but it’s not applied systematically.”
Culture & mindset
Back was among the five industry experts who kicked off today’s proceedings, pondering how to create a competitive advantage with AM in a VUCA world. As the discussion developed, the panellists couldn’t get away from the time it takes to grow with the technology. To get to a million parts with additive, Stratasys’ EMEA President Andy Langfeld argued might be impossible, but if it’s not, it will take an awful lot of time. For TRUMPF Laser, it took seven years – not to get to a million parts, but to get to its first serial production application.
Those years are generally spent understanding the technology, identifying where to apply the technology, and convincing hierarchies to invest in it and customers to back it. But supply chain disruptions don’t care for schedules, and climate change is waiting for nobody. The Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity is hard to escape.
TRUMPF is not alone in taking time to build with AM. Daimler Buses’ Matthias Schmid will later discuss how it has identified 40,000 of a portfolio of 320,000 spare parts as feasible for AM, and Siemens Mobility’s Christian Ochs will touch on the additive manufacture of safety critical parts. When asked how their companies managed it, they will reply: ‘Hard work’, ‘a lot of effort.’ For Daimler, it has taken the company six years to launch a licensing platform that allows customers to download spare parts and print them themselves – today, more than 1,000 are ready, but there’s another 39,000 to get to after that.
“Adoption,” Langfeld acknowledges, “is highest where the pain is biggest. Spare parts are not available, maybe not even a drawing, so that’s where you see the acceptance. Tools, jigs and fixtures is another example.”
But when companies strive to move beyond that, they are confronted with the usual barriers that slow them down. Standards was mentioned as a necessary but frustrating one (especially when the standard relates to a conventionally manufactured part rather than an additive one), but there’s also cost, education, talent, and mistrust.
At Airbus Composite Technology Centre (CTC), CTC CEO Marc Fette noted that the aviation giant has a few thousand 3D printed parts flying on its aircraft – ‘a little number’ in the grand scheme of things. “It’s a long way to come to an Airbus application. We need talent in the AM community to drive innovation,” he assessed.
The German Navy is less far along in its application of the technology and has encountered an internal battle between the generations. The longer-serving soldiers have a ‘mindset of mistrust’ with AM, but younger soldiers are pushing for its application. “Problems solved changes mindset,” Sascha Hartig, Coordinator Additive Manufacturing at the German Navy said. “People need to be convinced.”
They need to be convinced, and as moderator Sven Krause stated, ‘they need to be excited.’ But, Back suggested, companies in Germany (and other Western countries) could also learn from how Chinese manufacturers might approach applications.
“In China, speed doesn’t come from volume of people, they use the most modern technologies. There is a mindset of ‘prove to me it can’t be done with additive.’ 70% of all production aids are being 3D printed. You can ramp up products within a week. In Germany, we go the slow way, and I’m concerned whether we have the time for that.”
